On the transition of the empire from the Medes to the ,Persians.—Xenophon's romance omits the fact that the transference of the empire was effected by a civil war ; nevertheless, the same writer in his Anahasis confesses it (iii. 4, 7, 12). Herodotus, Ctesias, Isocrates, Strabo, and, in fact, all who allude to the matter at all, agree that it was so. In Xenophon (/. c.) we find the Upper Tigris to have been the seat of one campaign, where the cities of Larissa and Mespila were besieged and taken by Cyrus. From Strabo we learn that the decisive battle was fought on the spot where Cyrus afterwards built Pasargadw, in Persis, for his native capitaL This agrees with Herodotus's account of two armies being successively lost, which may mean that the war was ended in two campaigns. Yet Ctesias represents Astyages as finally captured in the palace of Ecbatana. Cyrus (says Herodotus) did Astyages no harm, but kept him by his side to the end of his life. This is like the generosity of the Perisian kings to vanquished foreigners, but very unlike the conduct of fortunate usurpers, east or west, towards a fallen superior. The tale in Ctesias is more like the current imperial craft. There we read that Cyrus at first made Astyages ruler of the Barcanians (see Tzetzes, in Bahr's Ctes. p. 222), and afterwards sent for him by the eunuch Petisacas to visit his daughter and son-in law, who were longing to see him. The eunuch, however, put him to death on the road ; and Cyrus, indignant at the deed, gave up the mur derer to the cruel vengeance of the queen. As tyages had certainly lived long enough for the policy of Cyrus ; who, by the Roman Cassius's test of Cui bone? Who gained by it ?' cannot be ac counted innocent.
The Medes were by no means made subject to the Persians at first. It is highly probable that, as Herodotus and Xenophon represent, many of the noblest Medes sided with Cyrus, and during his reign the most trusted generals of the armies_were Medes. Yet even this hardly explains the phe nomenon of a Darius the Mede, who, in the book of Daniel, for two years holds the government in Babylon, after the capture of the city by the Medes and Persians. Indeed, the language used concern ing the kingdom of Darius might be explained as Oriental hyperbole, and Darius be supposed a mere satrap of Babylon, only that Cyrus is clearly put forward as a successor to Darius the Mede. Many have been the attempts to reconcile this with the current Grecian accounts ; but there is one only that has the least plausibility, viz., that which, with Xenophon, teaches that Astyages had a son still living (whom Xenophon calls Cyaxares), and that this son is no other than Darius the Mode ; to whom Cyrus, by a sort of nephew's piety, conceded a nominal supremacy at Babylon. Objections to this likewise are evident, but they must be discussed under Darius the Mede,' or the book of ' Daniel.' In the reign of the son of Cyrus the depression of the Medes probably commenced. At his death the Magian conspiracy took place ; after the defeat of which the Medes doubtless sunk lower still. At a later time they made a general insurrection against the Persian power, and its suppression seems to have brought them to a level with Hyr canians, Bactrians, and other vassal nations which spoke the tongue of Persia ; for the nations of the poetical Irdo had only dialectual variations of language (Strabo, xv. 2, p. 311).
Conquests and Wars of Cyrus.—The descrip tions given us in Ctesias, and in Plutarch's Ar taxerxes (which probably are taken from Ctesias), concerning the Persian mode of fighting, are quite Homeric in their character. No skill seems to be needed by the general ; no tactics are thought of ; he does his duty best by behaving as the bravest of common soldiers, and by acting the part of champion, like a knight in the days of chivalry. We cannot suppose that there was any greater advance of the military art in the days of Cyrus. It is agreed by all that he subdued the Lydians, the Greeks of Asia Minor, and the Babylonians : we may doubtless add Susiana, which must have been incorporated with his em pire before he commenced his war with Babylon ; where also he fixed his military capital (Susa, or Shushan), as more central for the necessities of his administration than Pasargadae. Yet the latter city continued to be the more sacred and beloved home of the Persian court, the place of coronation and of sepulture (Strabo, xv. 3, p. 728; and Plut.
Artax. init.) All Syria and Phoenicia appear to have come over to Cyrus peaceably.
In regard to the Persian wars, the few facts from Ctesias, which the epitomator has extracted as differing from Herodotus, carry with them high probability. He states that, after receiving the submission of the Bactrians, Cyrus made war on the Sacians, a Scythian e., a Sclavonic) people, who seem to have dwelt, or perhaps rather roved, along the Oxos, from Bokhara to Khiva ; and, that, after alternate successes in battle, he attached the whole nation to himself in faithful allegiance. Their king is called Amorges by Ctesias. They are undoubtedly the same people that Herodotus (vii. 64) calls Aneyrgian Sacians ; and it is highly probable that they gave to the district of Margiana its name. Their women fought in ranks, as sys tematically as the men. Strabo has cursorily told us of a tradition (xv. 2, p. 307) that Cyrus escaped with but seven men through the deserts of Ged rosia, fleeing from the 'Indians' —which might denote an unsuccessful war against Candahar, etc., a country which certainly was not reduced to the Persian empire until the reign of Darius Ilystaspis.
The closing scene of the career of Cyrus was in battle with a people living on one or both banks of the river Iaxartes, now the Syr-deria. I lerodotus calls the enemy the Massagetans, who roamed along the north bank of the river ; according to Ctesias it was the Derbices, who seem to have been on the south. Both may in fact have combined in the war. In other respects the narrative of Ctesias is beyond comparison more credible, and more agreeable with other known facts, except that he introduces the fiction of Indians with elephants aiding the enemy. Two battles were fought on successive days, in the former of which Cyrus was mortally wounded, but was carried off by his people. In the next, the Sacian cavalry and the faithful Amorges came to support him, and the Derbices sustained a total and bloody defeat. Cyrus died the third day after his wound ; his body was conveyed to Pasargadtu, and buried in the celebrated monument, which was broken open by the Macedonians two centuries afterwards (Strabo, xv. 3 ; Arrian, vi. 29). The inscription, reported by Aristobulus, an eye-witness, is this :— 0 man, I am Cyrus, who acquired the empire for the Persians, and was king of Asia. Grudge me not, then, this monument! Behaviour of Cyrus to the yetvs.—The kings of Assyria and Babylon had carried the Jews into captivity, both to remove a disaffected nation from the frontier, and to people their new cities. By undoing this work, Cyrus attached the Jews to himself, as a garrison at an important post. But we may believe that a nobler motive conspired with this. The Persian religion was primitively monotheistic, and strikingly free from idolatry ; so little Pagan in its spirit, that, whatever of the mystical and obscure it may contain, not a single impure, cruel, or otherwise immoral practice was united to any of its ceremonies. It is credible, therefore, that a sincere admiration of the Jewish faith actuated the noble Persian when he ex claimed, in the words of the book of Ezra, Go ye up, and build in Jerusalem the house of Je hovah, God of Israel ; He is God P—amd forced the Babylonian temples to disgorge their ill-gotten spoil. It is the more remarkable, since the Persians disapproved the confinement of temples. Nevertheless, impediments to the fortification of Jerusalem afterwards arose, even during the reign of Cyrus (Ezra iv. 5).
Perhaps no great conqueror ever left behind him a fairer fame than Cyrus the Great. His mighty achievements have been borne down to us on the voice of the nation which he elevated ; his evil deeds had no historian to record them. What is more, it was his singular honour and privilege to be the first Gentile friend to the people of Jehovah in the time of their sorest trouble, and to restore them to the land whence light was to break forth for the illumination of all nations. To this high duty he is called by the prophet (Is. xliv. 28 ; xlv. 1), and for performing it he seems to be entitled The righteous man' (xli. 2 ; xlv. I3).—F. W. N.